there is no 'here' and no 'there' in reality, it's a massive and complex system and at any time if you perform an exchange of a good or service for a silver coin, that is using it as money. the more people who do it, the more people will be willing to do it. it's a fallacy that you have to have top-down impositions in a marketplace. the only thing that has to happen to make the transition happen faster is brokers who are ready to deal in multiple currencies. they already exist, and always have existed.
the stamp of the state's approval does not have anything to do with market transactions except when it waves its guns around and says 'you can't do that'. and of course there's no reason why the guns couldn't be in the hands of the general population and perform that function perfectly well as well, without fancy government printed badges to 'authorise' this use of force.
anyway, this is kinda off topic. i'd appreciate it if someone would lay out in plain simple bullet points what precisely is the difference of opinion between austrian economists and objectivists. austrians rigorously stick to logic for the most part of their writings so if there is a disagreement between objectivist theory and austrian theory then there must be some clear and simple conflicts of logic which point out that one side is operating circular logic and the other is axiomatic and irrefutable.
there is no 'here' and no 'there' in reality, it's a massive and complex system and at any time if you perform an exchange of a good or service for a silver coin, that is using it as money.
According to Mises, "money" means "The most commonly used medium or media of exchange in a market society. A community’s most marketable economic good, which people seek primarily for the purpose of later exchanging units of it for the goods or services they prefer. The circulating media most readily accepted in payment for goods, services and outstanding debts."
If you accept that definition, "money" (in the US) means "US dollars", the fiat paper issued by the government, or substitutes for dollars. When people exchange silver coins for goods or services, they do it on the basis of a US dollar exchange—using the coin as a substitute for fiat paper, not as money itself. The economy of "alternative monies" is entirely based on substitution for "real" government money (and is also tiny to the point of utter irrelevance).
True, you don't need top-down imposition of money in a market (in fact, it wouldn't even be possible until after a free market money already exists), but it's what we have today, and you can't just wish it away.
anyway, this is kinda off topic. i'd appreciate it if someone would lay out in plain simple bullet points what precisely is the difference of opinion between austrian economists and objectivists.
Austrian economists, qua economists, only deal with economics; Objectivism really has nothing to do with economics; it's more concerned with ethics. Rothbard and others have shown how the methodology can be applied to ethics, but that's not properly economics any more. It's not entirely clear that Rothbard's methodology leads to different results than Rand's (e.g., Roy Childs realized that if Rand followed her own philosophy to its logical conclusion, she would arrive at anarchism), but Rand and her followers didn't get there.
I find it incredibly disappointing, as a member of this board, that people feel the need to post garbage articles like the above. We all know that Rothbard had some kind of personal grudge against Rand, and as a result we get this kind of pseudo-academic rant. Is it in any way helpful to throw around meaningless pejoratives like 'cult'? Go to a leftist board such as Revleft and you hear them say "The Mises cult" and "The Rothbard cult". In fact there probably is not a single minority group that has not been called a cult at some point!\
The fact is that both the Objectivists and the Rothbardians DO engage in dogmatic behavior, and ARE cultish in the way Rothbard (ironically) outlines about the Objectivists.
If the article is so fallaceous, point out where and explain how. When Rothbard wasn't talking monetary theory, he was generally pretty spot-on, and I don't fault his reasoning in the article.
@Loki:
relieving discomfort is not neccessarily life affirming. what about a dose of heroin strong enough to cause breathing to stop? do you think a heroin addict really cares? anyone who's got the bad luck of having the job of giving them narcaine certainly wouldn't support the notion that people choose things because they are life affirming.
to suggest that there is any objective means to measure the effects of choices and actions on an individual is patently absurd. this is the exact same type of mistake as the mathematical economists thinking they can reduce a complex system of individuals to simple differential mathematics. oh, you *can* model human behaviour with computational systems, but not on paper, unless you got a few hundred years to do the calculations...
You are still unable to distinguish between economics and ethics. Objectivism is concerned with ethics: what values men ought to attain. It does not make praxeological claims or have anything to do with economic value. There is nothing in a rational ethics that declares that relieving perceived uneasiness is necessarily life-affirming. People most certainly do not necessarily choose life-affirming values. If they did, men, like plants and animals, would have no need of morality whatsoever. It is only the fact that, as praxeology itself informs us, acting man is alive and cannot not choose between alternatives so long as he is to remain living, coupled with the fact that man does not have automatic knowledge, that therefore he needs a method (i.e. process of thought) to discover those values and principles of action that will further his life or harm him. It is thus that man needs a code of values to guide the selection of those principles of action (or virtues) that will enable him to deal efficaciously with reality, i.e. he needs a rational moral code.
The alternative, as you indicate in the example of a heroine addict, is a subjectivist code of ethics. This is NOT the same thing as the subjective theory of value in economics. Omg. What about that do you not understand? Can we get that straight now?
A heroine addict still acts to remove his felt uneasiness. In order to act, a person is motivated by some preference. He believes that his action has the power to remove or alleviate his felt uneasiness. In other words, he wanted to do it, at least compared with the alternatives. The question ethics is concerned with is why one should want to perform the action, not whether or not he is acting in his preferred way of relieving his discomfort. Of course a heroine addict is acting to exchange a less satisfactory state of affairs for a more satisfactory state of affairs. The question ethics is concerned with is “By what standard?” “To achieve what goal?” which deals with what code of values man should adopt.
The heroine addict who adopts the subjectivist code of ethics answers that his own internal state (feelings, desires, urges) are the standard of value. It is good for him precisely because he wanted it, his own desires constitute the standard of right and wrong. This is the code of the drug user, hedonist, emotionalist, cheat, thief, liar, rapist, murderer, dictator, etc. But an objective code of value simply points out that it is the facts of reality, the laws of nature, not the will or whim of anyone's consciousness that establish a causal relationship between an organism's life and its values. Its nature requires certain kinds of action for its survival and flourishing, and there is no choice for any living being regarding the requirements and needs of its life. There are only cold, hard laws of nature as a standard of (moral, not economic!) value.
It is that objective moral standard (the requirements of a rational being for life and happiness) that the Objectivist ethics deals with as a means of measuring man's values. All man's values exist in a hierarchy. The reason for this is from the implications of value existing in the first place: i.e. that one of the only reasons the concept of value even exists is the fact that acting man must choose between alternatives, therefore he values some things more than others. If he has no standard of value, then there would be no means by which to value at all, because he could not judge what one should value more than the alternative. Every man has a standard of value, whether he knows it or not, whether its “whatever I feel like,” or whether its rational, irrational, or whatever.
Measurement, in this wider sense, is simply the identification of a relationship, established by means of some standard that serves as a unit. In dealing with value-judgments, we are not engaging in mathematical measurements (adding, subtracting, multiplying, etc.), we are dealing with teleological measurements, because there is no numerical unit involved. A moral code is a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate a given code's standard of value. All teleological measurement, including a rational code of values, establishes a graded relationship of means to end, therefore deals with ordinal, not cardinal numbers. Thus there is no way to turn morality into mathematical equations or models.
Now, this is going to sound irritated, but if you had actually read Rand before raising this objection, you would know that is the case as she clearly explains this in her own words, and since there is nothing in my previous post that could have led you to think otherwise, my guess is that you picked a criticism from your Austrian econ book or article and decided to use it without even knowing what you are using it against. For all the banter about independent rational thought and whose school of thought is more dogmatic (when Objectivism and Austrian economics aren't even conceptually opposed), you have demonstrated an inability to differentiate between economics and ethics, praxeology and morality, which means you know little of Austrian economics and absolutely nothing about the Objectivism you are supposedly refuting. If that is your idea of “think[ing] critically and logically,” and goes against your “instinct” to turn away from “cultish behavior,” then you should objectively be disappointed in yourself. But I hope this post can help to clear some of these myths up.
Notice, in all these attacks on even the possibility of a rational ethics, you have all done so by claiming an appeal to “think[ing] critically and logically.” If we think critically and logically, we must reject thinking critically and logically in ethics because reason does not apply to ethics. This is an error you may not notice on your own without knowing the epistemological method of Objectivism, but observe your own posts. Logic itself is a derivation of ought from is. One ought to avoid contradictions because contradictions do not exist. One ought to accept the inference of the contrapositive because it is valid. But why should one care about what exists, or what is valid? The question is not answerable with an appeal to logic without collapsing into circularity. Because you need to in order to win the argument. Because you need to in order to be right. Because you need to be right in order to win the argument. Because to be right and win the argument depends on perception of and adherence to reality, which requires independent critical thought and logic. But why should I care about adherence to reality? The only answer possible is an instrumental answer, one should care about what exists or is valid because that is required to remain in reality, to stay alive. To stay alive requires correct perception of and adherence to reality, and that is the basis of a rational ethics, which you must accept in the process of attacking it.
@Johnny:
This is the crux of it. You are wrong here, it is ALWAYS rational to choose death over life IF that is what is actually chosen. From what I can gather you appear
to be designating an act irrational on the basis of an arbitrary distinction between the circumstances of the valuer. If the valuer is a slave/terminally ill/prisoner then rational, if the valuer is depressed/miserable then irrational. Well I suppose it is not entirely arbitary, what you have actually done is said "physical illness/restraint = bad" therefore suicide is fine. Whereas "mental issues = no big deal" therefore suicide is not ok.
[…]
At what point does someone become physically ill enough for you to call them rational to commit suicide? To attempt to differentiate these things and fit them into an arbitrary rational/irrational straitjacket, as determined by an agency external to the actual valuer, is outside the bounds of reason.
In approaching this issue, we have to determine what is meant by “rational” here. Obviously, if one's actions are always rational, then there can be no quarrel, but because reason does not function automatically, this is then not the case. The discrepancy, I believe, is due to Mises' choice of words in explaining his theory. When Mises claims that all action is rational, he does not mean all action is based on a process of identification and integration of the material provided by man's senses, and that all humans always choose to act in accordance with reason and in harmony with the facts of reality. He, of course, did not believe that, as he himself criticized the irrationality and rejection of reason of many intellectuals throughout his writing. What he meant was simply that any action must have a means/end structure in order to qualify as action. The actor uses means to achieve an end. In other words, that human action is purposeful. Objectivism contains no disagreement with that. Objectivism and Austrian economics are therefore totally compatible upon qualification of these things, as Rand herself thought as much.
I think the major hurdle between the two sides is the inability to distinguish between economics and ethics, between describing human action and evaluating human action. When an Objectivist says “values are objective” some go off the hook and say “No! Heresy! All value is subjective!” without understanding that the Objectivist is talking about moral value-judgments, not economic theory. Let's take the example of a faith healer. If a man with a terminal illness gets desperate and consults a faith healer, this action is irrational. However, when Mises says “there is no such thing as an irrational action” what he means is that he objects to calling it “irrational” in a praxeological analysis because he believes the term “irrational” implies a judgment of value, which is outside the scope of praxeology. The terminally ill person is still acting to remove felt uneasiness, but this does not rule out evaluation of his actions, and there is nothing in praxeology that would rule that out. It would just be beyond the scope of praxeology, that is, it would be in the field of ethics. Economics simply does not judge the content of people's values.
Now, as to the distinctions made of when suicide would be rational, you are close to the answer, but not quite there. If we go back to my post explaining this issue, we might superficially see a “physical illness/restraint = bad,” “mental issues = no big deal” criteria, but this is over-emphasis on the actual concrete examples I gave, and no reference to any kind of abstract principle. The actual standard was:
“...when value-pursuit becomes impossible to a person due to certain situations, death may then be preferable to living […] because the concept eudaimonia is about more than mere morgue-avoidance. [...] A person can only experience the value of life through those particular values chosen.”
What does this mean? It means the criteria of rational judgment is not determined arbitrarily (meaning without rational basis), and it is not determined only by any agency external to the valuer, but also is not determined only by any valuer apart from external reality. Both of those describe value-judgments being made outside the bounds of reason. That is actually what points us to the alternative to intrinsic and subjective: objectivity. A rational value-judgment can only be determined by a valuer in examining the facts of reality in relation to his ends. Since the value of life for every person is determined by those particular values a person holds (i.e. they are the source of his enjoyment, happiness, etc., his emotional fuel to keep going), if no value-pursuit is possible to a person, then his life will be devoid and emptied of meaning and happiness (e.g. some of the circumstances I gave off the top of my head: illness, slavery, etc.) Existence to him will be comprised of nothing but misery and suffering with no chance for improvement. Since, contra Kant, there is no duty to stay alive “no matter what,” then he could rationally prefer non-existence to an existence of suffering.
i get where the conflict comes from now. austrians don't assert an ethical position, praxeology is value free, in fact. there is a good reason for this: having a prejudice about right and wrong inhibits your ability to see what is really happening and/or stops you from being able to properly analyse the reason for it. like in my example of the overdosing heroin addict - if you criticise it purely from the point of 'objective ethics' then you are kinda, well frankly, it just sounds like leftist collectivist busybodying because your only interest in the situation is the cost to society of this poor sap nodding out for the last time.
in this specific example, the way to fix the problem of the heroin addict, in my opinion, cannot ever really happen, you just have to bring someone along to kickstart their heart again whenever they pop off, only when they lose all their friends and wake up one morning and think there might be a problem will they ever do anything about it. objectivist ethics says nothing about how to fix this problem, and in reality it's impossible to fix this without the 100% subjective agreement of the problematic heroin addict in question.
on the other side of it, the whole reason for the ready supply of heroin on the market has to do with all the corruption of an interventionist government system that not only bans the heroin but also in doing so creates a massive incentive for bloodthirsty people to run the trade and fill the pockets of bent police, customs officers and government officials with bribes which underpins the whole business. these are solutions, but they have nothing to do with ethics, rather, they are all about lining up means and ends.